GlobalHack VII seeks innovation to help foreign-born residents

Team members at GlobalHack VI. Next year's hackathon will focus on immigration and innovation.

Photo Provided |GlobalHack

The St. Louis-based, non-profit group, GlobalHack has announced the focus for its seventh hackathon a full year ahead of the event.

GlobalHack VII attendees will build software solutions to help meet challenges facing foreign-born and refugee communities in St. Louis. The teams will compete for $100,000 in cash prizes at the Oct. 12-14, 2018 event.

Executive Director Matt Menietti said the non-profit group wanted to build relationships with stakeholders and get a sense of what’s needed.

“It makes a lot of sense to forge those pathways way before the event, so that come October and November 2018, if and when something is produced that’s viable, we’ll have buy-in from those communities and something that will move the needle for the immigrant services community,” he said.

Menietti said he’s met with the International Institute of St. Louis, Casa de Salud and the St. Louis Mosaic Project, Saint Louis University and others.

One issue facing immigrants is the language barrier. Menietti said interacting with government, such as paying a property tax, can be especially challenging for immigrants.

“Is there a way that technology can help foreign-born individuals access city services, government services, the services provided by the International Institute and others more effectively?” he asked. “I think there’s an opportunity to explore that at the hackathon.”

With many immigrants also starting their own businesses, Menietti said there might also be room to figure out ways to use technology to get the word about those businesses out to others.

The 2018 hackathon will take place at the Chaifetz Arena on the campus of Saint Louis University.

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GlobalHack VI is all about solving a software problem and bringing attention to St. Louis’ tech scene.

This software competition is focused on helping the St. Patrick Center, a local non-profit that serves the homeless.

The $1 million in cash prizes is helping attract software engineers, graphic designers and other technologists from a wide area. GlobalHack executive director Matt Menietti said earlier this week that 1,200 people had signed up from 33 states and five countries.

GlobalHack VI will likely get attention in the computer programming world.

The St. Louis-based hackathon is offering a total of $1 million in cash prizes, making it one of the few hackathons in the U.S. to put up that kind of money.

"There have only been two hackathons in the history of hackathons that have put on an event with $1 million in cash," said Global Hack executive director Matt Menietti. "Those were by Salesforce a couple years ago, so we’re certainly in a different league now."

The problems plaguing the municipal court system in St. Louis County have been in the spotlight a lot lately. This weekend, coders will come together at GlobalHack V to see if they can develop some tech solutions.

It’s a shift for GlobalHack, which has focused on corporate problem-solving since it launched two years ago. Executive director Matt Menietti said the non-profit’s goal is to improve the city’s tech community, but they wanted to see if they could do more.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: It’s an experience Gabe Lozano knows well.

“You and I have probably met tons of guys who have the billion-dollar idea,” said Lozano, a local entrepreneur and founder of LockerDome, a sports-oriented social media platform. “Most people never get past an idea to an actual product. That’s the part of the ecosystem we want to impact.”